


take me from the wreckage

by nothingunrealistic



Category: Billions (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, rage? in MY rage room?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingunrealistic/pseuds/nothingunrealistic
Summary: Physically venting your anger doesn't really make you less angry, in the long run, so why is Taylor doing it?
Relationships: Taylor Mason/Lauren Turner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	take me from the wreckage

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the season 5 premiere, looked up rage rooms out of curiosity, came across [this article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/11/rage-rooms-what-might-surprise-you-growing-trend/1754653002/), and decided I had to write this.
> 
> Fic title from "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox.

Catharsis is an ouroboros. Unleashing one’s anger, whether in word or in deed, may be a temporary solution, but the gratification of doing so once can lead you to it again and again, rage feeding on its own rewards until the cycle consumes you as well. Punch a wall once in a fit of pique, and if you don’t break your hand, or if you can stand a few fractured phalanges, your drywall may suffer further blows. Ream out a misinformed stranger online without consequences, and a dozen more will soon receive even harsher vitriol. It’s not venting, it’s wallowing; best to avoid the pattern entirely.

Taylor knows all this, and not only because they’d heard it from a string of therapists in their teenage years, a more volatile time for them if for anyone. They’ve seen it in Axe, of course, a one-man master class in the dangers of putting satisfaction before sense; he leaves a trail of strained and broken relationships, professional and personal, in his constant quest for revenge on whomever he has most recently designated his enemy. And his patterns are reflected in the people he surrounds himself with, all willing to break what they’ve built for themselves if someone else will suffer.

So Taylor’s sought a different path. Embrace stillness, focus, control. Tai chi to center and calm the mind; swimming to work the body. Consider all possible consequences of one’s actions before making a choice. And when strong emotion is inevitable, handle it without lashing out. (Tears can be just as relieving, and far less destructive.)

A trip to a rage room does not fall on that path. Though they would never have told Lauren that so baldly — it was thoughtful of her to give them a free gift certificate to the place, and reassuring that she can still read Taylor so effortlessly while promising them that they remain indecipherable to everyone else. (Not that they enjoy being thought unfeeling, but it’s necessary for survival now.)

(And even if Lauren couldn’t see through Taylor’s façade ordinarily, she could hardly have misinterpreted them wanting to know if she could recommend a chiropractor who might undo the effects of months of forcibly slumped shoulders and blank expressions, or them asking via text from the Axe Cap bathroom if she could bring a change of clothes from Taylor’s apartment and some discretion. Taylor hadn’t wanted that issue taken to Wendy, would have preferred to notify building maintenance and leave the matter there, but it seems Lauren and Sara agree on the necessity of righting wrongs done to Taylor by going over their head against their wishes.)

The point being: Taylor hadn’t intended to use the gift certificate for themself. They’d thought of passing it on to Winston — he’s struggled with the transition to Axe Cap, and it’s manifested in his old defenses reviving, cocky demeanor and casual dismissal of anyone he considers less talented than himself. Or maybe to Ben, as a gesture of goodwill; they’d hoped that he, at least, would get along with their employees, and he hasn’t been outright hostile, but his distaste for the quant team was clear, and disappointing.

“Was” being the key word, as it seems a single prearranged wrestling stunt and pep talk were all anyone from Mase Cap or Axe Cap needed to shake hands and get along fabulously — Winston and Ben had been deep in conversation about the merits of Python when Taylor had passed them en route to Axe’s office. And they’d spilled the details of their arrangement with Chuck to Axe, and sat there quietly as he complimented them on all the ways they’re just like him, precisely as Chuck had, and gone home to their penthouse, its two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows looking strikingly like the endless glass of Axe Capital that lets no one go unwatched, and wondered what it would take to shatter those walls. A pot from the kitchen? A chair from the dining table? What about —

Not a productive mental path to go down. Obviously.

So forty-five minutes and one online reservation later, Taylor stands in the lobby of All The Rage, filling out a waiver and listening to the establishment rules. All common sense — listen to the employees, keep all personal protective equipment on at all times, be careful around anyone else in the room, no kicking or punching or taking swings at the walls and doors. And “have fun!”, which Taylor highly doubts will be enforced.

The employee giving them the rundown, and the safety gear, leads them down a hallway and stops before a door to wrangle a keyring from one pocket. “You’ve got a premium package. Practically a whole apartment’s worth of breakables.”

“Website said my arms would be tired afterwards,” Taylor says, trying to sound light, and not like a person whose apartment is twice as large as this entire business. “I hope that’s accurate.” They lower their face shield, which clicks against their safety glasses; the clear plastic is the only part of this getup — hard hat, coveralls, work gloves — that isn’t pitch-black.

“Oh, I’m sure of it.” A click of the lock, and the door is opened to Taylor. They step in and look around.

“An apartment’s worth” was barely an exaggeration. What Taylor’s seen and heard of rage rooms before is metal walls and bare concrete floors and precisely counted items scattered around for smashing. This room is furnished exactly like an apartment, and a nice one — hardwood flooring and area rugs, wallpaper and molding, comfortable furniture, a television on the wall. Countless shelves filled with ceramics and glassware, and propped in a corner, a crowbar, baseball bat, and sledgehammer.

“You’ve got thirty minutes to go wild,” the employee says. “Be safe, open the door and give a shout if you need anything, and have a good time!”

The door closes, and Taylor’s alone.

Wouldn’t it be remarkable if they passed the half hour in here without touching a single thing? Just sitting alone, unobserved, with enough time and space to regain that peace that’s been slipping away from them? Or possibly just lying down on the couch for a nap without the pressure to check their phone. Perhaps that would be a waste of Lauren’s money, but she’s well-compensated, and well aware that they hadn’t intended to use this at all.

Taylor moves to one of the sets of shelves, a triangular corner unit, closest to the assortment of weapons. It’s small and cheap-looking, probably particle board, carefully accoutred with bric-à-brac, to give the impression that someone cares about this piece of furniture and its decorations as objects of worth rather than targets to be destroyed. A fragile illusion. Taylor’s sick of those, and has been for a long time.

They pick up the sledgehammer from against the wall and feel its weight, moving through a few practice swings, before raising it above their head and bringing it down, once, twice, thrice. Colorful orbs, flowerpots, and vases shatter and shelves splinter and crumble under the blows; falling shards of glass and ceramic ring out like a carillon on the hardwood. 

Taylor stands still, contemplating the mess, and wonders: Is this enough? Does this satisfy them?

And they answer: No. Of course not.

A glass-topped coffee table stands by the couch. One strike of the hammer, and the glass disintegrates, glittering fragments falling to the carpet like shrapnel, like — like some motion Taylor knows, remembers, a familiar note but they can’t name the tune —

Like poker chips, flung across a table in anger. Krakow, incapable of losing gracefully and infuriated by losing to a nobody, screaming insults at them before storming away, living out his pathology, while countless hands tried to claim Taylor as their own. Krakow, now secretary of the fucking Treasury, and all this time Taylor’s been swimming in place, against the tide.

They’re fully armored now, and nobody’s going to touch them anymore.

Taylor tosses aside the hammer — it does the job, but doesn’t have quite the reach they want — and snags the baseball bat in its stead. The wall-mounted television is wide and sleek, an obvious shot.

_ Flatscreen in there — 4K?  _ **_Five._ ** _ You know, you make me proud. _

Taylor swings, and the barrel of the bat crunches a jagged hole in the LED display. Their second swing comes down on the top part of the bezel, which cracks and falls away from all around the screen. Home run. They get in a few hits to a dresser on the floor below the television — three strikes, exactly — that send chunks of painted particle board tumbling, before recalling the trinket-filled glass shelves set into the walls, and the reason they came here.

A chair stands in their path when they turn around; they kick it to the floor and keep moving. The glass shelves are the adjustable type, flat sheets sitting on pegs, and Taylor’s first swipe breaks only the top shelf, transparency turned cobweb-white by spidery cracks, while the rest just slip out of place along with their contents and land in a pile of mostly-whole pieces. Bashing away at the jumble fixes that.

The recess in the wall where the shelves had been is backed with a mirror, as is the once-matching set of shelves on the opposite wall, its pristine condition not yet spoiled. Taylor spins away from the debris at their feet, and through rows of boxes and baubles and their own shield and safety glasses, they can make out their face in the untouched mirror. The expression there is a snarl, features distorted by a pounding pulse and rising anger, unfamiliar and terrifying for it.

_ That glass, it’s not a barrier. It’s a lens. _

Fuck clarity. Their own reflection is the last thing they want to see clearly right now.

Taylor storms forward and smashes the shelves one by one, a bell chord of shattering. With every hit they swing closer and closer to the mirror, until it’s cracked top to bottom. They set the bat down to grab two wine glasses from a crowded bar cart and toss them to the floor. A metal vase filled with potpourri sits on an end table; Taylor takes up the bat again and slams the vase across the room, tee ball-style. Everything within reach is a target — a pitcher among the remaining wine glasses, a potted plant, an empty picture frame standing on a desk next to —

A single Bloomberg flat-panel monitor.

Some small part of Taylor’s mind that isn’t subsumed in wreaking havoc says  _ come again? How did a place like this get a hold of one of those when any secondhand Bloomberg that even turns on gets snatched up by a bucket shop? _ But the tyranny of the mental majority prevails upon them to stop thinking and start obliterating this deeply unappreciated reminder of what’s put them in this room, this city, this life in the first place.

Taylor seizes the monitor with both hands and throws it down. Disappointingly, it doesn’t disintegrate on impact. They grip the bat tighter and count the blows they deal out. One. Two.  _ People like us must destroy — _ Three.  _ You need to be here. _ Their breaths come fast and harsh now, and glass scatters with every swing.  _ To feel alive, maybe even to be alive. _ Five.  _ A profit generating organism. _ Six.  _ You’re just put together that way. _ Is this how it feels?  _ You are just like me. Only colder. _ To hammer away at someone until they assume the shape you desire, to insist that they become exactly who you want them to be?  _ A person who’d sell out their own father… _ Nine.  _ There’s a chip missing there, you know what I mean? _ Ten —

The remains of the monitor have spread so widely that on the tenth swing, the bat strikes empty floor and vibrates wildly in Taylor’s hands. They drop the bat, jarred, and jump back to avoid it landing on their feet. Still breathing hard — their glasses and face shield have fogged over.

Their left hand in particular stings painfully; they look closer to discover a cut bleeding steadily on the underside of their wrist, in a spot left bare by both coveralls and gloves, vulnerable to all the sharp-edged fragments flying at them. A gap in their armor. How many people, especially among their so-called colleagues, would feign astonishment to see them leaking blood rather than machine oil?

The couch is thankfully untouched by debris where Taylor sits down, applying pressure to their wrist as best as one can while wearing thick gloves and lacking even a tissue to hold over the cut. Less fortunately, it offers a panoramic view of all they’ve broken in the last — who knows how long it’s been? No clock in here, and if there were one it surely wouldn’t function, and their phone is in a pocket, cocooned away under these coveralls — the last several minutes. They’re not satisfied by the demolished knickknacks and shelves, or the decimated television. Just exhausted.

_ Hate is nature’s most perfect energy source, _ Axe had told them, minutes before Krakow proved just how perfectly energetic he could be.  _ It’s endlessly renewable. _ Bullshit. Leaning into hate is draining. Why else would Taylor now find the prospect of simply standing up again utterly daunting? And why else would tears be blurring their vision and making them gasp for breath?

They’ve stopped crying when many minutes later the same employee opens the door — and, Taylor thinks, eyes the untouched half of the room with judgment — but the post-lacrimal headache could have been inflicted by the sledgehammer they’d discarded from how it’s sticking around. “Got your money’s worth for tired arms?”

“Certainly,” Taylor says, flat. “Can I take these off now?”

“Only once you’re out of the room, sorry. Regulations, you know?”

“I do.”

Somehow Taylor gets off the couch and out of that over-furnished oubliette, and they remove their face shield and peel away their coveralls the moment they get the go-ahead. The employee offers them a water bottle once their gloves are off; if they weren’t thoroughly dehydrated, they might cry again. Best to just offer profuse thanks and drink the water.

“Thanks for raging with us,” the employee says as they both enter the front lobby. Taylor very narrowly avoids choking on their mouthful of water. “You should be getting a customer satisfaction survey by email, it’d be a big help if you filled that out. Have a great night.”

“I will do that,” Taylor says, pushing open the door, with no intention of clarifying which of those two things, if either, they plan to do. If they’re lucky, the mandate to have a great night will be as strictly enforced as the earlier rule about having fun. If not, well, they’ll have an entire customer survey in which to express their dissatisfaction.

They order an Uber — Taylor doesn’t mind the subway, usually, but right now they’re a raw nerve, exposed, liable to flinch at the slightest touch — and wait, scuffing their shoes against the sidewalk, thinking. 

At best, they feel mildly relieved by their exertions, less constrained by frustration they wouldn’t let see the light of day and less tempted to do anything they’ll truly regret. At worst, that relief is far outweighed by the guilt that’s tapping away at them for having lost themself in careless destruction, asking whether they can stop what they’ve started here, if a bleeding arm and pounding head are enough to dissuade them. And even demolishing their own apartment wouldn’t do a thing to push Axe or Chuck off their path or out of their life.

Catharsis is an ouroboros. Chase satisfaction for an eternity, and you’ll still find yourself where you began.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry.
> 
> Thanks for reading. You can find me on Tumblr @nothingunrealistic.


End file.
